1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to personal audio devices such as wireless telephones that include adaptive noise cancellation (ANC), and more specifically, to management of ANC in a personal audio device that is responsive to the quality of the coupling of the output transducer of the personal audio device to the user's ear.
2. Background of the Invention
Wireless telephones, such as mobile/cellular telephones, cordless telephones, and other consumer audio devices, such as mp3 players, are in widespread use. Performance of such devices with respect to intelligibility can be improved by providing noise canceling using a microphone to measure ambient acoustic events and then using signal processing to insert an anti-noise signal into the output of the device to cancel the ambient acoustic events.
Since the acoustic environment around personal audio devices, such as wireless telephones, can change dramatically, depending on the sources of noise that are present and the position of the device itself, it is desirable to adapt the noise canceling to take into account such environmental changes. However, the performance of an adaptive noise canceling system varies with how closely the transducer used to generate the output audio including noise-canceling information is coupled to the user's ear.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a personal audio device, including a wireless telephone, that provides noise cancellation in a variable acoustic environment and that can compensate for the quality of the coupling between the output transducer and the user's ear.